Friday, 1 November 2013

Get on Board

Written by Claire Chapman, Information and Membership Officer, One East Midlands

With Trustees Week kicking off on Monday 4th
November and our AGM taking place later this month, One East Midlands is
extremely grateful for the work of our dedicated team of trustees. However the results of
recent surveys can sometimes put trustees of VCS organisations in a negative light – I examine why age may play a part in
this.

According to research by the Charity Commission the
average age of a trustee is 57 and only 0.5 percent of trustees are aged 18 to
25 years old. This has led to the suggestion that the boards of charities lack
diversity and are often
not representative of their
beneficiaries.

As a 34-year-old who at the beginning of the year
joining the board of Headway Derby (I’m looking forward to officially getting
elected later this month at their AGM), I fall into the age range and views of
those under 35s surveyed by Young Charity Trustees, where 85 percent of
respondents wanted to become a trustee and 82 percent of those who had been a
trustee rated the
experience as positive or very positive.

However I should argue that I didn’t become a trustee
because of the age range I fell into or to try and drop the average age, but
because I wanted to put something back into a charity, my locality and make use
of my skills and knowledge.

I’ll admit it took me a while to find the perfect board
to join, despite signing up to newsletters and working for an organisation that
will advertise trustee vacancies from across the region for free. But I didn’t give up hope
and when I found the trustee vacancy for me I was welcomed with open
arms.

At any moment there are thousands of VCS trustee
vacancies, especially as we enter the run up to AGM season. So whatever your age and background, if you have the
passion, skills and the time (often no more than a couple of hours a month) go
for it, perhaps even taking your search a step further than mine and write to
the charities you would like to support direct.

And if you are a VCS organisation struggling to fill
your board vacancies, this Trustees Week make a resolution to spread the word
wider and include the VCS in your search. Why, well in the small team at One
East Midlands alone I’m a charity trustee, we have one former trustee, and our
Chief Executive is a school governor.

Although none of us have yet reached the age of 57 we all hope to still be volunteering until we get
there and beyond. In the meantime we will continue to channel our passion and
drive into useful voluntary roles and encourage others, including the younger population, to
do the same.